The announcement of the online version of Adobe Photoshop got me thinking about what exactly do Web 2.0 applications and services need to do to be competitive to desktop applications. It’s obvious that in most cases, simply being a web application isn’t going to be enough: the online photo editors that I’ve reviewed are nice enough, but a software giant that has a huge user base might often be able to wipe them all simply by releasing an online, light version of their desktop application - and this scenario is very plausible in the case of Photoshop Online.
So, what conditions do Web 2.0 startups have to meet to make sure they can’t easily be replaced (because of zero switching cost) by another application, or to make sure that they add enough value over their desktop counterparts to be competitive?
To analyse this we’ll have to remember what comprises a Web 2.0 application in the first place (with a lot of help from Tim O’Reilly). Although not all Web 2.0 applications and services meet all of these conditions, some subset of these is what is generally thought of as Web 2.0:
The order in which these characteristics are presented is important. Numbers 1 and 2 are the basics. 3 to 6 are derived from 1 & 2, while the last one is only present if conditions 1, 2, 4, (probably) 5 and 6 are met. Due to the diversity of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, there will be exceptions to this, but this list in exactly this order is in my opinion a good representative of what the majority of Web 2.0 applications and services are about.
The question is, which of these conditions must a Web 2.0 service or an application meet to offer significantly more value than its desktop counterpart? Numbers 1 & 2 are, by itself, most often not enough. The advantage that they offer is that this service is available from any computer connected to the Internet, which is great, but they also have the disadvantage of not being able to (yet!) offer the robustness and the features of desktop applications. The web as the platform, as well as programming platforms like AJAX simply cannot stand up against advanced applications built for a desktop environment. As exceptions to this rule I have to mention Netvibes and Google Reader. Everything they offer can be done with a desktop application. However, the reasons for their success are simple: they are very competitive (for me personally, Netvibes is the best) compared to other applications of their kind, offline are online. The second reason would be the fact that they’re very closely tied to the web itself so it’s a very logical choice to users to use an online application for this type of functionality.
Number 3 is a tough one. Its advantage is the fact that users don’t have to worry about upgrading. Its disadvantage is the fact that you cannot go back to the previous version, which is not unimportant. I still use ACDSee classic (version 2.43) simply because its faster and less bloated than the current version. Can I do this with an online application, such as Netvibes? No. It’s a problem. Web 2.0 companies could offer old versions of their products online, however due to hosting costs and raising cost of development and support I sincerely doubt it’s ever going to happen. Still, some Web 2.0 apps and services will have to address this issue, because the users’ uncertainty of what a new version might bring is going to be a major problem for them.
Number 4 is going to be enough for some services which base their entire functionality on this, like DropBoks. Others, however, won’t benefit much from it. Sure, it would be nice if you could store your photos at Picnik’s servers, but it’s still not a killer feature that would make you switch to it from Flickr. Which brings us to number 5.
Data sharing among users is a key feature of Web 2.0 apps and services. This is the part that builds communities. This is the feature that made YouTube and Flickr so popular. This is the killer feature that you cannot replace with a desktop application, no matter what you do. The desktop applications stop here, and even if they try to win some users with an online version of their product, they still can’t buy themselves a community. However, the communities are fluid, ever-changing entities. Managing a community, keeping it satisfied, making it grow and profiting from it is a complex task which will stop many business decisions in their tracks.
The big question here is: can any Web 2.0 service really thrive without a community? Is the community an essential part of the Web 2.0 experience, the one without which you might go on for a little while, but you can never expect greatness? Since it’s hard to quantify the success of Web 2.0 apps and services, because many of them are free and many of them aren’t actually earning any money, it’s too early to say. But based on Web 2.0 services which have really become huge - Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Bebotarget=”_blank” , and others, I would say that your choice is simple: you either have to have the best application compared to desktop or online competitors, or you need to have a thriving community.
Possibility of making mash-ups - number 6 - is icing on the cake. It enables users to create new services which are dependant on the primary service, which creates a network of services with your service on top. It definitely increases the value in the long run, and might prove as important for some services (Google Maps springs to mind) as the community itself. How do desktop apps compare? Simple: they don’t. Creating an open API and giving others the possibility to benefit from your service is definitely a way to be a step ahead of the desktop application.
Number 7 - value of an application growing with the number of users - is directly derived from and tied to the community. Flickr would still be a usable application if it had only 10 users, but it would be good for storing photos online and little else. With millions of users, it’s also a fantastic place to browse for photos, learn about photography, meet friends, and a thousand other things. The bigger the community, the bigger the gains. It’s important to notice here that this happens with offline applications too. Try to find tutorials for Photoshop - you’ll find thousands within minutes. For some competitors, you’ll be hard pressed to find a dozen. The community that uses Photoshop increases the value of this product, because they can help you when you’re stuck and they can show you how to do tricks you would never think of yourself. However, in the case of online applications, the benefits are much greater. Let’s make up an example and imagine for a second that there is an online application very similar to Photoshop, which enables the users to share their images, brushes and layers, or collaborate on images. I assure you that Photoshop would be left in the dust very, very fast.
The conclusion is simple. If you have an idea for a new Web 2.0 service, make a check list similar to mine above. If you can check all 7 points, your Web 2.0 startup has potential for greatness. If not, you must be wary and weigh all the possible scenarios very well, lest you be stomped over by someone else simply because your service doesn’t give enough value to become what every application and service strives to be - irreplaceable.
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